Places to Play: Bicentennial Park in Portage a good place to make new friends

Each week, we’ll report on a different playground in Southwest Michigan. Have an idea for Places to Play? Send an email to Fran Wilcox.

PORTAGE — Bicentennial Park is almost always a busy park.

Fran Wilcox | Special to the GazetteBicentennial Park in Portage is usually a busy place to play.

Sometimes that’s not such a good thing — like when hordes of 9-year-olds sprint across the bridge, bumping into your 2-year-old as she teeters on an edge, which can create a moment of heart-stopping panic.

But for a sociable kid or a lonely mom, this park can be a golden opportunity to make new friends.

The one play structure at the park on Milham Avenue has three slides and two ladders of varying difficulty as well as steps, a ramp and a fire pole. It also has an absolutely terrifying shaky bridge, with nothing but some chains with big gaps between kids on the bridge and a hard fall to the woodchips below.

IF YOU GO

The other downside to this park is the limited number of swings: Two regular swings, and no baby swings.

Despite all this, my daughter likes the park. So do Solana Sutherland, 3, and her brother Sawyer Sutherland, 1, of Vicksburg. Their mom, Sonya Sutherland, said she had used the trail system that runs through the park, but a recent visit to the playground was the first for Solana and Sawyer.

“I think it’s a good level for them,” Sonya said. “It has stuff that’s challenging for Solana, but also stuff Sawyer can do. I need a playground with things they can do themselves because I can’t help them both at once.”

Sawyer enjoyed the slides while Solana proudly mastered the highest ladder — a feat usually out of her reach on bigger play structures, Sonya Sutherland said.

Fran Wilcox | Special to the GazetteSawyer Sutherland, 1, climbs the steps at Bicentennial Park in Portage.

The Sutherlands also brought bikes to take advantage of the trail, which goes north and south out of the park. The 3.5-mile paved trail runs from a small playground at the Celery Flats off Garden Lane, through the park on Milham and on to a trailhead at Lovers Lane and Kilgore Road.

The trails are generally well-used and play host to bikers, Rollerbladers, dog walkers, joggers, walkers and lots of strollers toting kids to the playground to meet up with friends — or maybe to make some new ones.